Press Note ICA at the forefront to promote “Integrated Digital Solutions for a Smarter and Digitally enabled India" New Delhi, 23rd July, 2015: Taking forward the momentum of the Government's flagship "Digital India" program, aimed at transforming the nation into a digitally empowered society and enhancing the state of Governance in the country, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) organized a seminar on "Integrated Digital Solutions for a Smarter India" in New Delhi yesterday. Senior officials from the Government of India and industry leaders addressed the audience, and discussed regarding the scope and role of communication technologies, challenges currently been faced and finding out solutions towards realizing an ICTdriven digitally enabled agenda to transform India as a digitally empowered society and how to effectively address and eradicate the digital divide of today. Mr Pankaj Mohindroo, National President, Indian Cellular Association (ICA) and Chairman – Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) set up by DeitY to promote mobile manufacturing eco-system in India, one of the key speakers during the panel discussion on “Leveraging Information communications technology in building India’s digital future” highlighted that “in order to make Digital India initiative a success, the Government must deeply focus on the bottom of the pyramid population, those who own low end Smartphone / feature phones and focus must be to build up robust solutions to handle the issues faced by the targeted population, which are related to network connectivity, battery life, display and issues faced from related segments e.g. towers, operators etc.” Mr. Mohindroo further highlighted that, “Increase in local language content is another important issue, and solutions related to these needs to be implemented in handsets to increase mobile penetration and increase in its usage. Mobile handsets should come up with certain number of Vernacular Languages which should be pre-loaded in the phone to drive forward the Digital India agenda.” Mr. Sanjay Bhasin, Trustee and Deputy Chairman of the Apex Council of the Action Centre for Smart and Broadband Bharat (ACSBB) and former VP – Samsung Network division, while taking part in the Panel discussion mentioned that, “There should be an integrated and common approach to be followed by all relevant stakeholders from the Government and Industry to work together in addressing the common challenges which hinders the growth of the Digital India mandate. For example Issues like laying up of Optical fibres, which involve multiple Government agencies and Industry stakeholders need to be commonly planned and executed for getting better results.” The Action Centre for Smart and Broadband Bharat (ACSBB) has been instituted under the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), as an independent and not-for-profit body, which has been mandated to closely work with GOI agencies, various State Governments and Industry stakeholders to carry forward the agenda on Digital India and help realize the goal in establishment of a digitally empowered society. The Apex Council of ACSBB has extremely rich experience to act as the leading Think-Tank of the Country to support NOFN, Smart Cities and Delhi Wi-Fi projects. The Indian Cellular Association (ICA) has recently entered into an agreement with the Institute for Information Industry (III), Taiwan to co-operate in various fields including the National Optical Fibre Network (NoFN), Smart cities, Internet of Things (IoT) and promote other technologies to take forward the Digital India vision of the Government of India. Joining hands with Globally renowned institutions like III, Taiwan is considered to be an important milestone and in further boosting the charter of ACSBB.